Software Construction

Beyond specific domain skills, building software is a craft that
requires careful design. This course teaches key software design
principles in a studio setting. Each week, students present their
programs to the class for a design review. Together, the class
evaluates the programs for their correctness and, more importantly,
their clarity and design.

Expect to learn how to build reliable,
maintainable, extensible software and
how to evaluate other’s code for those
same properties.

All projects must be implemented via pair programming.
Pair programming means that you do all programming together.
Any time either you or your partner type a single keystroke towards
what you hand in, you must be together. Thinking about the project
separately is fine, but not working on it.

You must choose a partner
with whom you wish to work on projects as soon as possible.
You may switch partners after consulting with the course staff and
discussing the work log together.

Journal & Estimates

Each person must keep a work journal (individually). Every time you work on
something related to this course, enter the following information
(one line each):

what (topic),

when (date, time),

where (location),

who (working partner),

and how long (duration).

Please estimate at the beginning of each project how much time you think it will take.
Enter the estimate in your journal.
As the course progresses, try to understand how much you
over/underestimate and try to correct for it.
We will review the notebooks in case of conflicts and in case of borderline grades.

Programming Language

For in-class demonstrations and discussions,
I will use UML diagrams, Java and possibly some
constructs from Racket.

For projects, you are free to choose whatever language you wish to use.
You may also switch your language of choice over the course of the quarter.

Assignments

Mostly, there will be one assignment per week. The assignments
will include a short essay, modifications of a Java program,
designing and implementing programs from scratch, and
maintaining/modifying your own code.

Grades

Grades are assigned based on two factors: your class participation
and your code presentations.
Your weekly homework may have some influence in boundary cases.